Sell off assets or face revolt

Not our responsibility: District council pensioner housing -- an asset we should sell. Photo/file

By Steve Baron

THERE are monumental and controversial issues our district council must front up to if we are to forge ahead as a community. Without a doubt, debt has risen to the point that the pain of paying rates has reached its limits -- we may even face a rates revolt.

While it is easy to target the WWTP for much of that debt, this was a project that simply had to be built, regardless of what a certain block of councillors believe, or what the public may have been led to believe.

Adding to that, the i-Site was a very expensive escapade, as was the boardwalk, port buy-back and Splash Centre, which all contributed heavily to debt and for which we still pay.

Yet there are still numerous projects that really need to be progressed in Whanganui. Such as: town centre regeneration; port revitalisation; funding economic development through Whanganui & Partners (council economic development arm) to a realistic level to allow them to promote and market Whanganui to the rest of New Zealand and the world to ensure our fair share of tourism (which is not happening) as well as attracting new residents to the district; supplying adequate flood protection (mostly through regional rates); earthquake strengthening of council-owned buildings like the War Memorial Hall, Whanganui Regional Museum and Sarjeant Gallery; a new Dublin St Bridge; roofing the velodrome; creating a tram loop downtown to promote tourism; and building a modern dog pound ... all the while maintaining parks, footpaths and roads ... not to mention a million other things.

Our council chief executive, Kym Fell, has been hard at work during his first year trying to reduce costs and ensure our council is streamlined and efficient, but only so much can be done here. At the risk of being hanged, drawn and quartered, this community and its council need to seriously look at asset sales as a solution -- this is now the only option on the horizon unless we plan to regressively drift back into the past and accept a dying community.

Asset sales are not an easy pill to swallow and, from what I can see, there are very few if any councillors prepared to broach the subject. Take the very controversial issue of selling off pensioner housing, an issue that cost current councillor Rob Vinsen his seat on council a number of years ago.

Our stock of pensioner housing is evidently at the point where a lot of money will have to be spent to maintain it ... more cost for council and ratepayers. It's an emotional subject that is often fervently charged by those who wish to maintain the status quo, using emotive language such as "throwing the elderly out on the street" to stir up support by those with a certain political philosophy.

The reality is that this is an obligation we have taken upon ourselves that we are paying for twice over. That is the role of Housing NZ and the Government. We pay for this service through general taxation and then again in our council rates -- that is crazy. While all along Government sits there smirking at us and is happy to sell off huge numbers of state houses around town, pocketing the money and passing the buck because our council are covering their backsides.

Pensioner housing is an asset we really should divest ourselves of, so long as current tenants are looked after, because it really isn't the responsibility of local government to house the needy.

Whanganui also has an overabundance of underutilised property for a community our size. Take the Cornmarket Reserve, for example. The trouble is that every time council proposes selling off property, such as Handley Reserve (corner of Carlton Ave and Anson St) or Montgomery Reserve (corner of Montgomery Rd and State Highway 3), a small, vociferous group gets up in arms and councillors run a mile, fearing being sacked at the next election.

Sometimes you just have to do the right thing in a governance role and face those consequences, however unfair they may be. That is the political side of governance. I'm all for the community having their say, but some parts of our community can become very self-centred at the expense of the whole community. As is often the case, everyone is happy until it directly affects them or their neighbourhood.

The question is simple--community stagnation and debt ... or the sale of underutilised assets that will give our economy the impetus it needs to keep driving forward.

�Steve Baron is a Wanganui-based political commentator, author and founder of Better Democracy NZ. He holds degrees in economics and political science.